From Middle English chyne, from Old French eschine, from Frankish *skinu, from Proto-Germanic *skinō. Doublet of shin.
Meanings
The top of a ridge.
The spine of an animal.
[…] the captain aimed at the fugitive one last tremendous cut, which would certainly have split him to the chine had it not been intercepted by our big signboard […] 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:
The prerogatives which the Spartans have allowed their kings are the following. In the first place, two priesthoods, those (namely) of Lacedaemonian and of Celestial Jupiter; […] and of having a hundred picked men for their body guard while with the army; likewise the liberty of sacrificing as many cattle in their expeditions as it seems them good, and the right of having the skins and the chines of the slaughtered animals for their own use. 1942, “Erato”, in George Rawlinson, transl., The Persian Wars, translation of original by Herodotus:
And chine with rising bristles roughly spread. 1717, John Dryden [et al.], “(please specify |book=I to XV)”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
A piece of the backbone of an animal, with the adjoining parts, cut for cooking.
cs hřbet (top of a ridge) · sv krön (top of a ridge) · fi pallekulma (angle in the hull) · fi harjanne (top of a ridge) · pl obło (angle in the hull) · hu gerinc (spine of an animal) · fi ruoto (spine of an animal) · hu gerinc (angle in the hull) · fi selkäranka (spine of an animal) · fi harja (top of a ridge) · ru хребе́т (top of a ridge) · de Kimm (angle in the hull) · bg било (top of a ridge) · hu gerinc (top of a ridge) · bg хребет (top of a ridge) · bg гръбнак (spine of an animal)
From Middle English chyne, chynne (“crack, fissure, chasm”), from Old English ċine, ċinu, from Proto-West Germanic *kinu, from Proto-Germanic *kinō.
Meanings
(Southern-England, Vancouver) A steep-sided ravine leading from the top of a cliff down to the sea.
The cottage in a chine, we were not to behold it. 1885, Jean Ingelow, A Cottage in a Chine:
In the odorous stillness of the day I thought of the tracks that threaded Egdon Heath, and of benign, elderly Sandbourne, with its chines and sheltered beach-huts. 1988, Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 169:
From Middle English chynen (“to crack, fissure, split”), from Old English ċīnan (“to break into pieces, burst, crack”), from Proto-West Germanic *kīnan, from Proto-Germanic *kīnaną (“to split; crack; germinate; sprout”).
Meanings
(obsolete) To crack, split, fissure, break.
The wayward son did chine his father's heart.
A drought had caused the earth to chine and cranny.
After the erth be brent, chyned & chypped by the hete of the sonne. 1508, John Fisher, Treatise concernynge ... the seven penytencyall Psalms: